Artists Making a Difference

Back in April 2010, an oil rig called Deepwater Horizon suffered an explosion and a fire the results of which dumped millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill went on for months. You could see a live feed of the ongoing spill on CNN. The owners of the platform tried various solutions, none of which worked, and people like Kevin Costner lobbied Congress to use a machine he'd had developed to help clean the water. Finally in July of that year, they got the thing capped and BP was put on the hook for the clean up and residual affects to the tune of $20 billion.

Around that time, a fifth grader named Olivia Bouler from Islip, NY had an idea. She would draw and paint pictures of warblers and pelicans and other North American birds and put them up online to raise donations. Since then, her renderings have been snatched up to the tune of $200,000 and counting to help with ongoing clean-up efforts in the Gulf, which contrary to some ads you've seen, is not finished. Despite the eagerness of some tourist-centered business interests to say that the Gulf Coast from FL to MS is "open for business", the truth is a little murkier than that. It will likely take billions to undo the damage wrought by one of the worst environmental disasters in US history, and to make whole the people who draw their livelihoods from the sea. So $200K may not seem like much, but the point is that artists can make an impact even on a catastrophe of this magnitude, as this girl has done. Further evidence of the effect of art on the culture and the power it has to raise consciousness. Just in case you were wondering.

Check out Olivia's work here. She's actually quite good.

Now, I leave you with this for the next Gulf Coast vacation you might be planning, and before anyone gets up in arms, I am NOT saying that you shouldn't vacation down there if you so desire. I'm just suggesting that if you feel a bit of anxiety about going down there, you're not alone.

More Later
KCD

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